Categories

Meta

Personal writing

It has been awhile since I have posted anything on the blog (I do feel ashamed of this), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing! I have been doing quite a bit of old school, pen and paper writing thanks to the weekly writing class I have been attending. Sadly, tonight will be the last session of my writing class, but I have learned and written quite a bit, so I am very thankful for the past 5 weeks. This also means I will be putting a little more focus back on the blog! First some pieces from writing class.

This class is focused on personal writing so it is a lot of “write whatever you feel in this moment” style of writing. The teacher has provided us with a variety of prompts and told us to go wherever our mood takes us. My writing has been mostly journaling and essays (though I have dabbled in a little fiction writing! However that is not ready for sharing quite yet). So without further ado, here is a little something I wrote last week.

My memory is like a vast expanse of land covered in varying degrees of fog. Nearest to where I currently stand it is simply a fine mist, easily seen through. The further away I travel, the denser the fog gets. And yet, sprinkled randomly throughout are large, glowing objects, visible no matter how thick the fog.

Some of these objects are dark, looming figures which give off an ominous aura the closer I creep. I don’t enjoy visiting these, though sometimes their pull is too strong to ignore. Other objects are bright, shining beacons which dispel all the fog nearest them. These are pure joy and I visit them frequently. However, they can be just as dangerous at the dark objects if they are visited too often.

That is the key to this fog laden land. Spend the right amount of time with both dark and light but never forget to return, through the fog and mist, back to where the sky is clear.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I am currently taking a writing class focusing on personal writing. One of the prompts for this week was to write about your five favorite things, books, movies, music, etc. I thought, wow this will be easy and perfect for the blog! Though I think I could write about my five favorite of any of those, I am choosing books because I believe there is a direct correlation between my desire to write and my love of reading. So why not write about the books I love to read! So here they are my five favorite books.

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. When someone asks me what my favorite book is this is the first title I throw out. My first copy of Gone with the Wind was a paperback I purchased at a library sale which cost me a whopping fifty cents. If I had heard of the book or the movie at that point it was only vaguely, so I am not sure what initially drew me to this book. Perhaps it was the dramatic cover featuring Rhett grasping Scarlett, while Atlanta burns in the foreground (after seeing the movie for the first time it is apparent the cover figures on this particular edition were modeled after Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, which only makes me love it more). I’m sure the back cover synopsis also played a role. A story that takes place during the Civil War with a strong headed heroine as the central figure. Sold! If I had to sum up why exactly I love Gone with the Wind I would say it’s that it is truly an epic. The span of this story is part of what contributes to this, it takes place over the course of more than a decade, but it’s also the story of the downfall of a society and the end of a way of life. Of course it was entirely necessary for this society to fall, it was based on a morally corrupt and reprehensible system, but the story of this downfall and how the characters who lived within this society, the perpetrators of the crimes of this system, respond to it makes this story an epic. The fact that the heroine is flawed and mostly unlikable, only adds to the appeal for me. It isn’t an easy book and it certainly has its issues, for example that the author seems at times to be writing a troublesome love letter to the Old South, but I think you can use this romance about a young woman surviving the Civil War as a way to launch a discussion about the larger picture of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. If nothing else, it is a captivating story with memorable characters, and certainly a piece of American literary history.

Anything by Jane Austen. Okay so this isn’t a specific title, but I felt this list had to include something by Austen and I couldn’t quite bring myself to choose just one. Pride and Prejudice is the first Jane Austen novel I ever read, and it is probably the novel I have reread the most times, but I truly love her entire body of work. The books are romances, yet they are also sharp critiques of the society in which Austen lived and women’s role in it. Plus, they are legitimately funny. Her heroines have a wide array of traits and personalities, but each of them is the hero of her own story and that is so refreshing.

The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. Again not a single book, but this story is a series and I think it is best discussed as such. I am a part of the generation which grew up with Harry Potter. I remember reading books one and two in 5th grade and I attended a midnight release for the 7th book the summer after I graduated from high school. It is because of this that these books will always hold a special place for me. It also happens to be one of the first series of books I ever read. The anticipation of waiting for the next book to come out, the sadness when the series that you have spent the past several years with has finally come to end, the first time I really experienced these feelings intensely was with Harry Potter. Of course it also helps that it is the story of regular boy who ends up saving his world, and that is a story that will always appeal to me.

A Song of Ice and Fire Series, George RR Martin. I know, I know I keep counting multiple books as one entry on this list, but I feel this is legitimate when it comes to a series of books. They are generally one overarching story told over many installments. One story, one entry. I started reading this series the year the fifth book came out. I devoured all five of these monstrous tomes in about two months. To say I enjoyed them is an understatement. The thing I love the most about this series is the thing that everyone loves most, the characters. George RR Martin has created these vivid, flawed, realistic characters and everything from their histories down to the smallest bits of dialogue is captivating. Another great aspect of these books is a cultural one. You can sit and discuss and dissect these novels for hours (and believe me, I have). Anything that brings fellow readers together in such a way deserves a gold star in my book. (Note: Yes, yes the show is amazing too, however I strongly believe everyone who loves the show should check out the books. But don’t worry, not in a snobbish ‘the books are better’ way…though in this case I do think they are).

This fifth slot is a tough one for me to fill. Not because I cannot think of another book which I love, but because there are so many other books that I love. The first four entries came to mind immediately when I was thinking about my list of favorite books. They are the ones that will always be at the top of my list. But when creating a list of merely five, the fifth slot seems more difficult to fill. It fluctuates depending on my mood and what I am reading at the time. Classics, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Modern fiction, Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. Contemporary Young Adult, Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta. Fantasy Young Adult, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Genre Fiction, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I read a lot of books and there have been many that have touched me in some way, many which have inspired me to read more and to write. So I am saving this slot for whatever book I fall in love with next.

I did it! I signed up for a Community Ed writing class. I did a lot of writing in college and more recently with this blog, but I think I could use some fine tuning. So I signed up for a class called: The Lost Art of Personal Writing. I attended the first class last Monday, and I have to say I am pretty excited about it. The class size was small, the teacher was exactly how I would picture a writing teacher (green corduroy blazer, glasses, white hair and beard), and we wrote with pens and notebooks (pens and notebooks!!!). We even shared what we wrote, which will be common throughout the course, and I actually wasn’t freaked out about it. This was incredibly surprising to me, in a good way. I enjoyed the writing of my fellow students and I think I will learn a lot from them as well as from the instructor. I think this will be very good for me and I am really looking forward to the next class.

We are going to be covering a lot of writing styles from journals to memoir, poetry to short stories. I am going to share some of my writings/progress here. One of the exercises the teacher had us do was write a list of one word descriptors for ourselves. We had three minutes. Here is what I came up with: